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Out of Africa and straight to the beach

Modern humans emerged just once out of Africa - and headed straight for the beach - new genetic research suggests.

Most scientists agree that modern humans left Africa relatively recently, and it was traditionally thought that the route taken was northwards, overland into the Middle East and beyond.

But by measuring genetic variation in an isolated population in southeast Asia, Vincent Macaulay at the University of Glasgow, UK, and a team of international colleagues, conclude that the dispersal actually took a southern coastal route.

“It looks likely that a founder population crossed the Red Sea, and spread to Australia via India and southeast Asia, taking a southern route along the coast,” says Macaulay ... New Scientist

Hobbits Alive?

The feud over Homo floresiensis, the little people of Indonesia, centers on whether they were an extinct diminutive species that evolved from some ancient hominid, such as Homo erectus, or whether they were just pygmy humans, perhaps suffering from some disease. The leading skeptic, paleoanthropologist Teuku Jacob, has claimed that there are pygmies living not far from where the fossils were found, on the island of Flores ... Corante

Pygmy found near home of hobbits

Indonesian scientists have found a community of pygmy people in the eastern island of Flores.

The community is near a village where Australian scientists discovered a dwarf-sized skeleton last year and declared it a new human species.

The latest discovery will likely raise more controversy over the finding of Homo floresiensis, claimed by Australian scientists Mike Morwood and Peter Brown in September. They nick-named the skeleton a hobbit.

Kompas daily reported yesterday that the pygmy community had been found during an April 18-24 expedition in the village of Rampapasa, about 1km from the village of Liang Bua, where the species called Homo floresiensis was found.

The newspaper quoted Koeshardjono, a biologist who discovered the pygmy village, saying 77 families had been found there.

Teuku Jacob, a professor at Gadjah Mada University, who led the human anthropology research team, said 80 per cent of the Rampapasa villagers were small, with most male adults under 145cm and female adults about 135cm ... Herald Sun

Jawbone hints at earliest Britons

A piece of jawbone that has lain in Torquay Museum, Devon, for nearly 80 years could be the oldest example of a modern human yet found in Europe.

The Kent's Cavern specimen was thought to be about 31,000 years old, but re-dating shows it is actually between 37,000 and 40,000 years old.

However, the early dates lead the team behind the research to wonder if the jawbone is actually from a Neanderthal.

A new examination of the fragment along with DNA analysis could sort this out ... BBC NEWS

Ancient jaw bone raises questions over early man

New research has revealed Britain's oldest fragment of modern human - a jaw bone unearthed in the Westcountry - is 6,000 years older than previously thought. Carbon dating had indicated the piece of jaw bone, with only three teeth, originated around 31,000 years ago. But the specimen was recently deemed suspect, because it had been strengthened with paper glue some time around its excavation from Kents Cavern, Torquay, in 1927.

The find was made by the Torquay Natural History Society, and identified by Sir Allen Keith, the top human anatomist of his day. But only in the 1980s was its significance recognised. Now, Dr Roger Jacobi of the British Museum and Dr Tom Higham from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit have conducted new research. Their findings indicate the piece actually dates back between 37,000 and 40,000 years ... Stone Pages Archaeo News

Artist puts a face on ancient "Hobbit"

Wide brown eyes stared warily from a dark face on a screen at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on Thursday night. The face wasn't human, but it seemed disconcertingly close.

From an 18,000-year-old skull pulled from a cave in Indonesia, Denver artist John Gurche re-created the tiny human relative Homo floresiensis, one of the most dramatic archaeological discoveries of last year.

His work graces the cover of this month's National Geographic magazine ... DenverPost.com

DNA project to trace human steps

A project spanning five continents is aiming to map the history of human migration via DNA.

The Genographic Project will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised.

Samples gathered from indigenous people and the general public will be subjected to lab and computer analysis to extract the valuable genetic data.

Team leader Dr Spencer Wells calls the plan "the Moon shot of anthropology" ... BBC NEWS

Museum's mammoth bones exhibit new life

For almost 30 years, the mammoth bones sat in a display case at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, just another fossilized piece of a long ago past.

Today, however, some scientists think the bones may provide crucial evidence that humans arrived in the Great Plains about 1,000 years earlier than thought ... DenverPost.com

Plains hunters may have arrived 12,300 years ago

Mammoth and camel bones from a northwestern Kansas archaeological site appear to have been smashed by human hunters more than 12,000 years ago, a Denver scientist announced Monday ... Archaeology - Topix.net

Iberia was the European demographic reservoir during the last Ice Age

By studying mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to child, researchers have found that most of the actual European inhabitants seem to have come from re-expansion of hunter-gatherers populations, which have migrated from Iberia, Europe, after the end of the last Ice Age reports an article in the January issue of Genome Research ... Innovations Report